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country above the thoughts of self, and who wage unending war with the evils of the day.
It was there that he showed first to the whole country the great qualities which we have learned to appreciate better in every year of his life, that he set before us the high standard of patriotism to which he has ever since been true. It was there that he began to win the confidence, the respect, the admiration, the affection which have grown with his years, and which are shared by thousands of his fellow-countrymen, of whom we who sit at these tables are but an insignificant part. It was there that he met the maxim, “Our country, right or wrong,” when given as the patriot's motto, with the true interpretation, “I believe in ‘my country, right or wrong;’ when it is right, to be kept right, and when it is wrong, to be set right.”
This is the ideal patriotism, and when we think of the men who opposed him and whose names are now forgotten, and when we hear their arguments repeated by their successors of to-day, it is a great pleasure to look about these tables and to realize how certainly true patriotism and true character alone win lasting regard. I could wish that some of those who now forget the teachings of the fathers could look into this room, and, reading in our faces the verdict of posterity, would turn to study the career of Mr. Schurz, and learn from it the lesson “Sic itur ad astra.” [Applause.]
